Blood on the Tongue. Stephen Booth

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СКАЧАТЬ few miles. He had to slow the Toyota to a crawl and swing the steering wheel from side to side to avoid the worst of the potholes, but in the total darkness he couldn’t see some of the holes until he was almost in them. It was sudden death for suspension systems up here. This was the sort of lane that delivery drivers and salesmen would avoid like the plague, the kind of track that people needed a good reason to live at the end of. As he climbed to Hollow Shaw, Cooper wondered what George Malkin’s reason might be.

      He parked in front of the old farmhouse and got out. A few yards away, a man was leaning on a wall. It was so quiet here that Cooper could hear rustling from the field on the other side of the wall, and the faint snorting of a flock of sheep. Somewhere in that direction must be Blackbrook Reservoir. He knew it wasn’t a large reservoir like those in the flooded valleys, where the vast stretches of Ladybower and Derwent attracted the tourists. Blackbrook was small and self-contained, just enough at one time to supply drinking water for the eastern fringes of Manchester.

      ‘Mr Malkin?’ said Cooper.

      ‘Aye. That’ll be me.’

      Cooper made his way across the garden to where the man stood. Malkin was wearing a pair of blue overalls and a black anorak, and a cap like a lumberjack’s, with woollen ear-flaps. Cooper thought at first that he was bundled up with sweaters round his waist, but when Malkin moved he saw that the man was actually pear-shaped, with wide hips like someone who hadn’t ever got enough exercise. Cooper introduced himself and explained the reason for his visit.

      ‘I wonder if you could spare a few minutes, Mr Malkin? Nothing to worry about.’

      ‘You’d better come in the house.’

      This was one farmhouse that had never been converted to the standards of modern living. There was no double glazing and no central heating – a spiral of smoke from the chimney testified that there was still at least one coal fire inside. The last modernization had been in the 1960s by the look of the front door panelled with frosted glass and the blue linoleum visible in the hallway.

      Malkin took off his anorak and cap. His skin was weathered and he looked like someone old before his time. George Malkin had been eight years old when the Lancaster crashed, so he could only recently have started drawing his pension.

      ‘Excuse the mess,’ said Malkin. ‘I don’t get a lot of visitors.’

      Cooper shivered. There was an unrelenting coldness in the house. Partly, it was the sort of chill that came from years of inadequate heating and a Pennine dampness that had soaked into the stone walls. And now the winds that spiralled down off Kinder and moaned through the empty fields had found their way into Malkin’s house for the winter. The draught had crept under the back door and slithered through gaps in the frames of the sash windows, wrapping itself round the furniture and draping the walls in invisible folds. The chill seemed to Cooper like a solid thing; it moved of its own accord, butting against his neck as he walked across the room, and hanging in front of him in every doorway, like a wet curtain.

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